Terrance888
Discord Reigns
So therefore Portugal is important to the discussion? (Doubling income in five years is pretty 'taxing')
BirdNES 3: Discussions & Questions
- Thread starter Birdjaguar
- Start date
Immaculate
unerring
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2003
- Messages
- 7,623
Oh- so the English attacks on Ireland were NPC-generated? Thats weird for BJ from what i know.
Oh well... i was just trying to pull flak away from England and onto an NPC. I hate that everyone is discussing/complaining about the nation i am playing.
Kraznaya
Princeps
Somewhat, but Portugal's trade stat being high is less important than England's base economy being high.
Well I have read through all this and find much of it interesting, even though much is a rehash from other threads and times. I need to give it all some thought. I will say though that at the start all the nations were publicly balanced for income and ecomony to put them in some relative position that approximated 1490. China was the outlier with an economy 10+ times those of Europe.
The stat model, for the most part, then gave every nation the ability to grow it economy within broad parameters realted to size and populatiion. It has very specific ways of keeping players from gaming the system to make France equal to China. It does not prevent England or Portugal from equally France.
Someone raised the question about how much testing I had done on my model. The answer: some. All you can do before playing is to make sure that the math works and the calculations produce numbers that do not seem out of line. There is no way to predict what players will try to do or how they will spend, especially since I encourage players to just say what they want to do and I will allocate which slot to put the cash. & updates later, I am still tweaking things. The model used in each of my games is really the prototype for the next one.
When I first came to NESing in 2006, most games were pretty simple. In the three NESes I have created and modded I have tried to do four things: create a fun game; push the boundaries of what can be included in a game through more complex rules; develop tools to make modding easier; and mod games that personally interest me. I have my own agenda and for each of my games and I've pushed my ideas, good and bad, on anyone who will play. In general, the complexity I've added has only made modding my games more difficult and more interesting.
As far as England goes, English player's have been smart and figured out how to effectively increase their income. Other players are also beginning to get the hang of it too. No one is gaming the system beyond what I would have expected, even if they are stretching the bounds of historicity. To the chagrin of many, I redrew the whole new world to my liking; I did so because i like exploration and wanted to add a real unknown world to the game. I am not too concerned that smart players wrote good orders that boosted their money relative to others who invested differently and the new history is now mismatched with OTL.
Could the rules and stats be improved? Of course and I am always open to change and am willing to discuss ways to improve the game. I have threatened myself with completely rebuilding the stat model to make it more user friendly, but haven't had the time so far.
There are many other points in all the posts that I will try to address going forward, but cannot tackle atm. I have to stop for now, but please continue your discussion and I will step back in as I have time.
The stat model, for the most part, then gave every nation the ability to grow it economy within broad parameters realted to size and populatiion. It has very specific ways of keeping players from gaming the system to make France equal to China. It does not prevent England or Portugal from equally France.
Someone raised the question about how much testing I had done on my model. The answer: some. All you can do before playing is to make sure that the math works and the calculations produce numbers that do not seem out of line. There is no way to predict what players will try to do or how they will spend, especially since I encourage players to just say what they want to do and I will allocate which slot to put the cash. & updates later, I am still tweaking things. The model used in each of my games is really the prototype for the next one.
When I first came to NESing in 2006, most games were pretty simple. In the three NESes I have created and modded I have tried to do four things: create a fun game; push the boundaries of what can be included in a game through more complex rules; develop tools to make modding easier; and mod games that personally interest me. I have my own agenda and for each of my games and I've pushed my ideas, good and bad, on anyone who will play. In general, the complexity I've added has only made modding my games more difficult and more interesting.
As far as England goes, English player's have been smart and figured out how to effectively increase their income. Other players are also beginning to get the hang of it too. No one is gaming the system beyond what I would have expected, even if they are stretching the bounds of historicity. To the chagrin of many, I redrew the whole new world to my liking; I did so because i like exploration and wanted to add a real unknown world to the game. I am not too concerned that smart players wrote good orders that boosted their money relative to others who invested differently and the new history is now mismatched with OTL.
Could the rules and stats be improved? Of course and I am always open to change and am willing to discuss ways to improve the game. I have threatened myself with completely rebuilding the stat model to make it more user friendly, but haven't had the time so far.
There are many other points in all the posts that I will try to address going forward, but cannot tackle atm. I have to stop for now, but please continue your discussion and I will step back in as I have time.
I was smart player and tripled my income by gaming the massive (and unrealistic) trade increases, and England by doing so for 13,000 more gold! If anything results as of this discussion, it'd be nice to see the trade system reformed to be more gradual and finicky on an annual basis. 
sophie
Break My Heart
I was smart player and tripled my income by gaming the massive (and unrealistic) trade increases, and England by doing so for 13,000 more gold! If anything results as of this discussion, it'd be nice to see the trade system reformed to be more gradual and finicky on an annual basis.
Especially considering just how fickle trade was in this era. Seriously, look at a line graph of England's imports and exports for 1550-1600. It looks like a friggen mountain range.
Pft, a sufficiently awesome player can totally negate that via the magic of good orders
it's not the player's fault that all kings were idiots in real history
North King
blech
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2004
- Messages
- 18,165
I realize that this may seem like a good idea. But it's really not taking into account how the economy of that time actually worked. You can't just invest a whole ton of money in the economy1 and expect it to grow like that, leastaways not domestically.2 The idea that England on its own could equal the French Monarchy in spending is completely ridiculous.3
This is not a "good" thing; it does not enhance player freedom. Player freedom4 does not lie in being able to do anything you want. That's called "god mode". Player freedom lies in being able to try anything you want. If you have a senile and wacky Emperor of China, it's perfectly all right if the player tries to launch him to the moon with the use of gunpowder rockets. If you have a King of Spain who really wants everyone to be his friend, he can send off the silver convoys to land in Southampton instead of Cadiz.5
But what you shouldn't have is the Irish investing so much into their economy6 that they can suddenly compete with Venice, despite the fact that Ireland is poorly positioned for continental trade, doesn't have particularly fertile soils, etc.
No one's saying you're a bad mod, Bird. We're just pushing you to make it better.7 If a player is doing something interesting but not historical, then reward them!8 If they're doing something interesting but completely idiotic ("King James I wakes up today and he says, 'what a good day for a Scientific Revolution!'"), then make the negative repercussions real!9 But if you're just letting players extremely easily surmount the challenges of real, historical times, then aren't you just cheapening their eventual success?10
No one's talking about the New World being redrawn.
What we're talking about is that when you let a player invest into his economy and, with no other changes, achieve unrealistic rates of growth, you're making the NES less fun. Yes, even for metagamers!
Because what you're really doing isn't "improving player freedom", you're reducing the entire game down to a wargame between constantly growing economies and armies. Sure, you're making it a little more complicated than build SCVs, mine minerals, repeat -- you're making them invest in more than one thing, but instead of an interesting simulation or even a board game based on the era, you're reducing things to a linear game where luck (who figures out your black box first) determines the success of the player.
Or do you really think the player who invests into tea instead of coffee and because of some quirk of the black box gets a bigger boost is being more intelligent than the other?11
Don't worry, that is the beauty of a forum.
Spoiler Footnotes so people don't nitpick: :
tl;dr for the footnotes, figure out what I'm actually saying instead of arguing semantics.
Abaddon
Deity
But Beej does do this...I have faced significant rebellion and corruption because my idea were unsuitable for the times.
North King
blech
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2004
- Messages
- 18,165
That's not really the thrust of the argument, though (the footnotes were getting crowded).
Kentharu
Zebra Commander
On a personal note BJ there reasons I quit were as follows:
1. PerfNES launched and I wanted to devote more time to that.
2. School work is getting crazy.
3. You made a few to many stat mistakes for me.
4. I didn't really agree with losing the amount of ships that I lost, for the reasons you gave.
They are ordered by importance.
I don't have anything against you and if your modding style changes to my liking then I will certainly rejoin.
1. PerfNES launched and I wanted to devote more time to that.
2. School work is getting crazy.
3. You made a few to many stat mistakes for me.
4. I didn't really agree with losing the amount of ships that I lost, for the reasons you gave.
They are ordered by importance.
I don't have anything against you and if your modding style changes to my liking then I will certainly rejoin.
Luckymoose
The World is Mine
Colonial China should be impossible.
Bird, your last post there completely misses the main, central issue, which is the basic principle of adhering to historical plausibility and not having things happen that don't make any sense. Are you trying to be plausible?
If so, try harder. If not, you should.
If so, try harder. If not, you should.
Abaddon
Deity
Why? They had the capability, just not the political will.
qoou
Emperor
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2007
- Messages
- 1,991
The various states of Europe had the capability to unite into one big bad empire, just not the political will.
Terrance888
Discord Reigns
So? If the political will that needed to be achieved is possible, then Uniting Europe is possible.
Abaddon
Deity
Sending out a few ships is a heck of a lot of easier than what you are trying to compare it to.
Any before anyone snaps my jaws too much, I am merely carrying on the previous players work.. I didn't start the colonies.
Thlayli
Le Pétit Prince
North King
blech
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2004
- Messages
- 18,165
Yeah that's another major complaint with NESes in general: far too easy to colonize.
Terrance888
Discord Reigns
Hey, if there is the will, and there is the means, what is the problem? He didn't say "take it over in a timely, bloodless fashion"!
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